Friday, April 23, 2010

Probably the most useful thing you can do right now to save this planet is to sit down and ask yourself what's the most useful thing you can do to save this planet.

Normally we're asked to consider this in our role as consumers, and although that's certainly a start, it hardly scratches the surface of our potential. I'm asking you to consider the question in your role as a unique individual: What are your talents, your arts, your pleasures, and how can you apply them in defense of Mother Earth?

Since my talents seem to lie in the field of mass-communications, I decided to have a couple of hundred posters printed up for use on the freeways: the ones shown here along with others I'll be introducing later. Like with the signs and slogans I put up during the Bush years, there's no assurance these will actually do any good, but I do like the way they look, especially from the road.

While it's easy to dismiss our efforts, either as individuals or collectively, as being far too little far too late, I think the stakes are way too high to afford the luxury of inaction. It isn't just the survival of the species homo sapien I'm talking about, or even the survival of life on earth: there's a good chance that it's much, much bigger than that.

After all, it's quite possible that life on earth is actually the only life there is: that everything else in the universe, throughout the entirety of time and space, is either blazing with fire or cold and dead, and that this little planet of ours is the only place where life of any sort exists or ever has. Until we get some definitive proof otherwise, I'm afraid those are the stakes.

Granted, saving life on earth may seem a bit daunting at first, and compounding it with the notion that you may be saving all life throughout the universe probably doesn't help much. Remember though that the first step is easy: sit down and spend some time figuring out how you're going to do it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

(from our Inbox) President Barack Obama has just nominatedJesus Christ, an immigrant originally born to a virgin mother in Bethlehem, to fill the new vacancy on the Supreme Court. Although Mr. Christ is over 2,000 years old, He is immortal, so Democrats and Republicans expect that He will serve on the high court forever or until He decides to start the End Times. Republicans are expected to fight the nomination on the grounds that Mr. Christ would radically move the Court to the left.

The GOP is also concerned that, despite decades of controversy and speculation, Mr. Christ has never revealed his position on abortion. Mr. Christ, according to many authorities, is expected to oppose the death penalty in all forms. Michael Steele, the head of the GOP national committee, issued a statement: "Christ is a complete mystery to us. He won't reveal His physical appearance and many of His positions are unknown or the subject of speculation. He is a stealth candidate. Why won't He reveal himself? Who does He think He is?"

Republicans are reportedly outraged that Mr. Obama even considered Mr. Christ, who has been widely quoted for his sentiments supporting the poor over the wealthy. In a Facebook post, former half-term Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin called for an investigation into the Bethlehem chapter of ACORN because of what she termed the "highly suspicious" coincidence that both President Obama and Mr. Christ had each spent three years as community organizers. In her post, Palin also wrote that "More and more of good God-fearing smalltime Americans from hardworking smalltime towns from great parts of this real America, West, South, East, North, are seeing more and more every day that Christ is a community organizer. We don't need another community organizer in the White House!"

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) asked, "We're not even sure where He was born. Why is He afraid to show us his birth certificate?" Bachmann also announced that she would vote "no" when the Christ nomination came before the House of Representatives. Later, her congressional staff released a statement saying that the Congresswoman had forgotten that the House does not vote on judicial nominations.

According to Rush Limbaugh, "Christ doesn't know anything about free enterprise. This is part of the Obama conspiracy to drag us to socialism. If this guy is approved, I'm moving to the Dominican Republic." Sobbing, Glenn Beck attacked Christ's support for the separation of church and state, telling his audience "You know who else wanted a separation of church and state? Hitler."

Democrats are hopeful that Mr. Christ's past associations with prostitutes will earn him at least one Republican vote, that of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA).